Those who like the blame the “Bush tax cuts” for America’s economic ills ought to peruse the following blurb from National Review’s print edition:
There is a school of thought on the left, exemplified by Paul Krugman, that the “Bush tax cuts” are what is mainly responsible for the fiscal straits of the United States, and that they represent the triumph of plutocratic interests over those of the middle class. Recent studies from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Congressional Budget Office put paid to that theory: After the Bush tax cuts, federal income taxes became, in the CBO study’s words, “slightly more progressive.” U.S. taxes are about as redistributive as those of Sweden or Denmark. As National Review has reported, tax rates on millionaires could be raised to 100 percent without generating revenue sufficient to balance the federal budget. Those who are concerned about deficits should be looking mainly at entitlement spending. Those who are concerned about economic inequality should be looking at primary and secondary education, health-care costs, trade policy, and the investment climate. What the poor lack is good jobs, and raising taxes on the rich wll not provide them.
